Unprecedented Project CenturyCamera To Document Berlin's Growth in the Next 100 Years

With a planned exposure time of 100 years, CenturyCamera is certainly nothing like we've seen in the history of photography so far. Read more about Jonathon Keats' groundbreaking project after the jump!

On May 16, 2014, conceptual artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats is set to unveil his ambitious project, CenturyCamera, “an intergenerational surveillance program” created in collaboration with Berlin-based exhibition space Team Titanic. Basically, a total of 100 ultra-long-exposure cameras are set to be installed in and around Berlin, Germany “to continuously document 100 years of municipal growth and decay for scrutiny and judgment by future generations.” The resulting images are planned to be showcased in a special exhibit on May 16, 2114.

A new photographic system based on the pinhole camera has reportedly been made by Keats specifically for CenturyCamera. He elaborates:

My photographic time capsules are extremely simple, since anything complicated is liable to break. The cameras use sheets of black paper in place of ordinary film. The pinhole focuses light on the black paper sheet, such that the paper fades most where the light is brightest, very slowly creating a unique positive image of the scene in front of the camera.

What makes this more interesting is that the public is invited to participate in the project. The cameras will all be released on the 16th, and anyone can pay a 10 euro-deposit for a camera which they can hide anywhere in Berlin “that they deem worthy of long-term clandestine observation…” It must be noted, though, that participants are to keep the location a secret until they’re old, when they are to “reveal the location to a child, who in turn will be responsible for keeping the secret into adulthood, so that 100 years from now one person in the world will know where to retrieve each camera.” The person, then, is to return the canister to Team Titanic for extraction of the century-old photo. Oh, and they get to collect the 10 euro-deposit, too.

The first people to see these photos will be children who haven’t yet been conceived. They’re impacted by every decision we make, but they’re powerless. If anyone has the right to spy on us, it’s our descendants. – Jonathon Keats

CenturyCamera certainly is one of the most interesting projects that we’ve come across so far; however, it’s also already attracted naysayers that doubt the project’s survivability given that absurdly long period of time. How about you, fellow lomographers? What do you think about it?

CenturyCamera will be unveiled on May 16 at Friedelstrasse 29 in Berlin-Neukölln from 7 p. m. until midnight. Keats himself “will be on hand to demonstrate the new technology.”

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You might remember experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats for the CenturyCamera, his ambitious project which involved installation of 100 ultra-long-exposure cameras in and around Berlin, Germany "to continuously document 100 years of municipal growth and decay for scrutiny and judgment by future generations" between 2014 and 2114. But today, Keats goes a step further and begins yet another groundbreaking and unprecedented project with the Millennium Camera.

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